I. "We know in part." This limitation is imposed upon us briefly. Of all that is, of all that ever we, with our present faculties, feel must be, we can know but a small fraction. Our knowledge is limited in range. And again, our knowledge of that small fraction of being, which is in any way accessible to us, is bounded and conditioned by our human powers. The universe with which we deal is not only a fragment of the whole, but it is a fragment shaped by the laws of our organisation. Our knowledge is limited in form. And yet once more, of that which man could know, being what he is, if the personal powers of the personal experiences of the race were concentrated in a single representation, what an infinitely small portion is embraced by a single mind! The angel who was seen in Augustine's vision emptying the ocean with a shell, gives no untrue image of the disproportion between the possibilities of humanity and the attainments of individual labour. Our knowledge is limited by the circumstances of life. Although we admit that our knowledge is thus limited, we do not commonly take account of the momentous significance of the fact. Many of us who are ceaselessly busy with our daily occupations do not feel it. Many who have distinctly realised it deliberately put it out of sight. That which we cannot know in the way of earthly knowledge is for us, they say, as if it were not. St. Paul follows a better way. He teaches us to see that these mysteries, and the full sense of limitation which they bring with them, are an important factor in our lives. He rounds off life on this side and on that, not with a sleep, but with the glory of the invisible. And is it not true that we are made stronger as well as humbler by lifting up our eyes to the sky, which opens with immeasurable depths above the earth on which we are set to work?
II. "We know in part." The fullest recognition of this fact is not only helpful but essential for the fulfilment of our several tasks. It needs but little observation to notice how swiftly an exclusive fashion of opinion passes away; how a partial philosophy reigns for a spell as universal, and then is neglected, and then is despised. But the Christian faith is the heir of all. It can welcome a new lesson, and it can shelter one which has grown unpopular. It is hospitable to forces whose claims to supremacy it combats. It draws strength from truths with which its enemies have assailed it. Even when it is impressed most deeply by the spirit of the age, it never lays aside its catholicity.
III. "We know in part." But we advance towards the limits of our attainable knowledge by the help of every fragmentary movement. We look upon the fullest vision of the truth in the combination of parts held separately. "We know in part," but the practical knowledge is, in its measure, the progressive symbol of the absolute. The Lord's words are in continuous fulfilment, "I have told you all things"; and yet He adds ought I not to say, and therefore He adds? "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."
Bishop Westcott, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,May 12th, 1881.
References: 1 Corinthians 13:9. Christian World Pulpit,vol. x., p. 136; W. Baxendale, Ibid.,vol. xxxii., p. 134. 1 Corinthians 13:9-11. G. Salmon, Gnosticism and Agnosticism,p. 1.